Sometimes you just want to put something on paper, and maybe you have go-to’s, like the ever popular portrait—or maybe you just don’t draw but want to start. It’s easy to doodle, drawing squiggles or circles without much concentration, and while that might loosen you up, it doesn’t exactly do much for your skills or portfolio.

Have you ever discovered a new clothing store, walked in, and said, "Now this is my style?" Everything in the place just screams your name, and you'd turn the store into your closet if you just had the cash to buy it all out? Well, that's how I feel about art supply stores. I don't really care to shop for clothes, but paintbrushes, acrylics, pencils—now that's my style!

Do you ever find yourself returning to a certain image, not because it means anything special to you, not because it's easy to draw, not because you've somehow amassed a collection of it from thin air, but for reasons that you cant explain? Do you doodle it on post-it notes and in the margins of your notebooks, letting your mind idle and your pen move freely in shapes it's made a hundred times before?

The supply that I'm discussing today has been an obsession of mine for about a year, starting from when I discovered it though an online impulse buy. I had been looking into new ways of getting color onto paper, other than the convention routine of paint or pen. That's when I came across Dr. Ph. Martin's Bombay India ink. Since that purchase, I've added Daler-Rowney neon inks, the Liquitex INK! muted color edition, and others to my growing collection.

Because of all the pen play happening, I was inspired to create some florals as a simple and quick way to get my pen to paper. The result was unexpectedly beautiful! One flower became two, two became three, and suddenly I had filled an entire page with a gorgeous pattern!

For 2017, I will be pushing myself to be as creative as possible for my new position as a Creative Team member! I've been chosen to be a part of the Get Messy Creative Team for next year, and will be creating videos, tutorial posts, and sharing images of my art work for a group of 1500+ beautiful people who share my biggest passion: art journaling!

It's Inktober and I was thrilled to get this month's ArtSnacks box! The ArtSnacks company advertised about pairing up with Inktober founder Jake Parker to release a specialty box (which I did not order), so I was hoping that the company would stick to the theme of inking; I was not disappointed!

T'S INKTOBER, and I'm participating! Inktober is a drawing challenge, created by Jake Parker, in which artists dedicate themselves to drawing one image everyday of October. The creator releases a prompt list, but not all artists follow it; the point is to draw each day, and it doesn't matter what, as long as it's in ink.

I have a certain love for hanging lanterns. Honestly, all party supplies stir something inside me that just gets me in a good mood, whether it be streamers, balloons...presents. I have a bad habit of leaving decorations up far beyond a reasonable time frame, and in fact, have a string of green paper lanterns dangling from the ceiling in my studio.